Chin,
What happened to our country this week is the most tragic thing that has ever happened..at least in my life time. The brutality that man can inflict on another person is just beyond belief. I constantly marvel at the fact that the root cause of many of these events can be traced back to one's religious beliefs and the ensuing fanaticism associated with these groups. Here we have one group praising God for the destruction of life and on the other hand groups praying to God to comfort them in this time of turmoil. Sadly now we have some of these same people wishing to annihilate ALL Muslims and at the same time invoking the name of God.
As for me, I certainly want the direct leaders and members of the group that implemented and carried out these attacks to be PUNISHED. PERIOD! However, what disturbs me is that many groups that now so vehemently wish to destroy a whole religious group(Muslims), would turn around and advocate the same conditions that the zealots of this faith wish on their members. That is to let religious beliefs control their total lives, whether they are zealots or merely members of the faith, or in the case of the USA, the lives of all citizens.
The practice of religious freedom is one of the greatest freedoms that we have in this country. So many of our forefathers and family members have given their lives to protect this freedom...and I surely agree that it must be maintained. However, not to the degree that it dictates our government and the rights we have as a free society. A prime example is the efforts now to allow government funds for religious groups. The following are my thoughts on this issue and expressed in a article that I wrote for another publication.(Let me preface these comments that religious freedom is vital to a FREE society..but always remember that the people of Northern Ireland are people also and history is replete with the results we now see there.)
"NEIGHBORLY LOVE
“No one can love a neighbor as well as a loving neighbor, and we must unleash good people of faith and works in every community of our country.”
-- President George W. Bush, July 19, 2001, upon congressional approval of a "faith based" charity bill.
In his book, THE BOOK OF VIRTUES, William Bennett describes many models of virtuous behavior in the religious history of mankind. Bennett’s examples reflect humanity's higher nature.
This kind of book has a certain charm. The rub is that inspirational writing usually paints a misleading picture of our religious and political history. What it commonly fails to mention -- indeed, often suppresses -- is a historical record riddled with horrific acts of inhumanity committed by ordinary, seemingly benign and friendly people against their own neighbors. True history rarely is suitable for a young child's bedtime reading; then again, THE BOOK OF VIRTUES isn't a template for adult public policy making, either.
We now face in our nation a great debate over the use of our federal tax dollars to fund faith based initiatives by religious organizations. As I was contemplating the pros and cons recently, I was reminded of what Abraham Lincoln said in his annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862, “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.”
When it comes to the "faith based initiative" I would say, “We can't escape the history of entanglement between government and religion.”
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The religious freedom we have in the United States is unique. Generations of patriotic citizens gave their lives to protect our right to practice our respective faiths. The separation of religious freedoms and governmental involvement has served us well. Why now ignore history and jeopardize the right of every citizen to participate in a specific religious practice -- or not?
Jan Gross’ new book, NEIGHBORS: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN JEDWABNE, POLAND, describes an event that took place sixty years ago which only now is coming to light, to the reluctant acknowledgment of the Polish people. Gross's book details how ordinary, usually well intentioned people -- people just like your neighbors and mine -- can descend to the darkest levels of misconduct when propelled by a religious or political tailwind.
The book is only 173 pages of text. For this, I'm grateful. As someone who cherishes human life, I doubt I could have read any more about the horrific slaughter of so many innocent adults, young children, and even babies.
The shock lies not only in the horrific slaughter, but in how ordinary and friendly everyone was, seemingly, beforehand. On the surface, Jedwabne’s Jewish and Christians population showed nothing but cordial feelings toward one another ever since the city's founding in the 1700’s. They did the normal things citizens do in a community: talked with each other on the streets, visited in one another's homes, saw the neighborhood children off to the same school, bought, sold and bartered with each other for services and goods.
But on a single day -- July 10, 1941 -- everything changed. Just what was the catalyst that brought about the drastic split between the Christians and Jews in Jedwabne?
The Germans had invaded Poland and were taking over the task of governing the people. Only a few days before, the Nazi army seized control of Jedwabne. What happened next is best quoted from Gross’ book, and more specifically the testimony of one Szmul Wasersztajn:
"On the morning of July 10, 1941, eight Gestapo men came to town and had a meeting with representatives of the town authorities. When the Gestapo asked what their plans were with respect to the Jews, they said unanimously, that all Jews must be killed. When the Germans proposed to leave one Jewish family from each profession, local carpenter Bronislaw Szlezinski, who was present, answered: We have enough of our own craftsmen, we have to destroy all the Jews, none should stay alive. Mayor Karolak and everybody else agreed with his words. For this purpose Szlezinski gave his barn, which stood nearby. After this meeting the bloodbath began. … Beards of old Jews were burned, newborn babies were killed at their mothers’ breast, people were beaten murderously and forced to sing and dance. In the end they proceeded to the main action … the burning. … Some tried to defend themselves, but they were defenseless. Bloodied and wounded, they were pushed into the barn. Then the barn was doused with kerosene and lit … The sick people they found they carried to the barn themselves, and as for the little children, they roped a few together by their legs and carried them on their backs, then put them on pitchforks and threw them onto smoldering coals.”
Before the war, 1,600 Jews lived in Jedwabne. After July 10, 1941, there were only seven -- and those few saved by a single Polish woman, Wyrzykowska.
How could so many townspeople -- so many neighbors and friends and colleagues who had coexisted for generations -- embark on such a murderous rampage against their fellow townsmen? Did their obvious hatred manifest itself overnight or had it surfaced before the Germans took over? Could it be that the Polish Christians were quickly influenced by the hate-promoting Nazi propaganda machine? Was there some equivalent of the Internet, a rapid-spreading news medium that advocated the destruction of all Jews? Or had there been all along some type of secretive anti-Semitic clan, perhaps one that burned Christian crosses in the dead of night while wearing hooded sheets?
Surely hate wasn’t taught in the Jedwabne schools, since both Jews and Christians attended the same school and, in any event, the Jews then would have been able to anticipate the fate that awaited them if they stayed in the village.
Most disturbing is that there was a powerful, state-supported religious source affirming that it was morally righteousness to scorn the Jews of Jedwabne. Pope John II, who was himself born in Poland, recently asked forgiveness for a Church that was at best indifferent about the treatment of European Jews under Hitler, and at worst deeply complicit. With a state-supported religion as dominant as the Catholic Church in Poland, it's not difficult to see why the Christians of Jedwabne needed nothing more than a nudge from their new German governors.
So, what is the connection with the contemporary political issue proposing that federal monies be given to faith-based organizations? Why should I have any concerns? Wasn't Hitler defeated?
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If anything, the trail of history shows a consistent pattern of religious group discrimination against others. Unfortunately, the pattern stretches without end far into the distant past and up to the present day.
The "other" may be a people with darker skin, or a different gender, or those with foreign accents, or people who don’t observe the approved religious protocols. Or, they may be targets of a churchly wrath, as we learned as recently as July 11 when the Washington Post exposed a White House deal with the Salvation Army (which many may not realize is itself a church), to sanction the use of federal "faith-based initiative" funds to discriminate against gays, regardless of state and local anti-discrimination laws.
Where Government supports any particular religious group, the risk to the freedom of others -- non-believers and believers alike -- escalates substantially.
There may be those who feel that what happened in Jedwabne could never take place in the United States of America. I would remind them of what Lincoln said in his address to Congress on December 1st, 1862. To provide an appropriate context for his words, let me suggest a homework assignment: go back to the events of May 8, 1845, and the gathering of a group of leaders at the First Baptist Church, Augusta, Georgia. The actions of this group shows how a 'faith-based' initiative even in America can be proclaimed as promoting "family values" at the same time it sets out to destroy the families of an entire race.
As Gross states in his book:
“The Holocaust ... stands at a point of departure rather than a point of arrival in humankind’s ceaseless efforts to draw lessons from its own experience. And while we will never “understand” why it happened, we must clearly understand the implications of its having taken place. In this sense it becomes a foundational event of modern sensibility, forever afterward to be an essential consideration in reflections about the human condition.”
When the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to approve the Bush Administration's "faith-based charity" bill and insulate religious groups from state and local anti-discrimination laws, President Bush thanked the lawmakers for funding the “armies of compassion.”
To this, I suggest that everyone should be mindful how once in a small Polish village a neighbor "gave his barn, which stood nearby" and the use to which it was put.
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